1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to devices capable of unconscious capture capability. More specifically, the invention relates to the unconscious capture of documents with a portable electronic device and the transfer of such documents using the portable device.
2. Description of Related Art
Electronically transferring documents between various devices has become an integral part of the work environment. However, the capability to transfer documents between mobile devices is very limited. Usually, in order to send or receive documents with mobile devices, an individual must make a conscious decision to transfer the information. That is, documents are not transferred until the individual performs some action or actions that enable the transfer to occur. Increasingly, it is desirable to have devices capable of unconsciously transferring documents between a mobile device and another device without an individual making a conscious decision to do so and, thus, without the individual having to take action(s) to cause the transfers to occur.
Systems for accessing and distributing electronic documents are well known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,321 issued to Lamming describes a system in FIG. 1 in which a portable device transfers a Universal Resource Locator (URL) to office equipment such as a copier, a facsimile machine, or a printer. Referring to FIG. 1, the office equipment uses the URL to access a document stored on a server. For example, the portable device sends a URL to a printer, which accesses the document from a document database using the URL, in order to print the document. One problem with the system of the '321 patent is that when the document is stored on a network system, the document is not secure from others that have access to the network system. In other words, the document is being transferred to the printer and its only security is based on whether the URL is known or not. Another difficulty in the system of the '321 patent is that the operation of the portable device receiving a URL is performed in response to an explicit user request. To request the device to perform its function, the user must enter some recognizable user identification to the device. Thus, the operation of the device is not unconscious, but instead is conscious.
Another prior art device referred to as the “HP CapShare 910” manufactured by Hewlett Packard Corporation of Palo Alto, Calif., is a device that is also capable of transferring a document to a facsimile machine. The HP CapShare 910 system includes a scanner for scanning information and transferring the scanned image to the facsimile machine. This device has the same limitations as the device described above with respect to the system in the '321 patent. Additionally, the user of this device must have authorization by way of user identification to transfer a document to a facsimile machine. Accordingly, conventional devices are limited in that a document must be stored on a second device before an act is performed on the document by the second device. Additionally, these devices do not operate with unconscious capture capability. Therefore, it is desirable to have a system capable of transferring documents between unconscious capture devices.